


let all of man agree, i am wicked through and through, and i will never sing of purity

by theholychesse



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Work In Progress, no nothing about it except. probs gonna be fucked up, tags and relationships will be added as. the next chapters will happen, wont exceed 4 of the bastards tho that i know for certain
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-11
Updated: 2015-09-11
Packaged: 2018-04-20 07:18:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,437
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4778465
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theholychesse/pseuds/theholychesse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry came to know the unforgiving kiss of cold, the embrace of heat causing his brain to sweat, the teasing touches of pleasure trailing down his spine, and the blows of pain as they pounded against his heart as if demanding recompose for a deed left unpunished. He came to know them well enough to paint paintings of them, but, instead, he came to the realization that gifts must be spread, and not coveted. </p>
<p>
  <em>One cannot stop me from telling lies, for from the day I was born, I was one.<em></em></em>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	let all of man agree, i am wicked through and through, and i will never sing of purity

Harry’s earliest memory is of swiping away some bacon, feeling half sick from the grease coating his gums, but feeling euphoric that something _good_ and _solid_ was filling up his belly. They’d barely noticed, the Dursley’s, only did they when Aunt Petunia happened to lean in and  smell something beyond spearmint from the bit of toothpaste he was allowed. He remembered his little child-body being stuffed in the closet, as they cooked a new batch of bacon right under his nose, his stomach gnawing at him as if self-cannibalization would soothe anything.

 

He didn’t even know his name was Harry until a neighbour called out, asking how he was, and Uncle Vernon answered with a ‘Broke three plates, so he’s weeding today.’

 

He coveted the name, hailed it, something outside ‘Boy’ and ‘Freak’ and ‘You’, it was something he’d whisper in the depths of the night, repeating those syllables until they carved a ‘Harry’ shaped groove in his mind. He even carved it on the walls, with his nails,  to soothe away the pain that came from hunger, from Harry Hunting,  and the rare times he’ll be belted. One time, Dudley saw them, all of those Harrys, and ran up to tell his horse-faced mommy, and Harry ( _Harry!_ ) had panicked, his breath turning quick, and there was the smell of ozone for a split second until--

 

The soft wood of his cupboard was nude, without any words and without any marks, and Harry was still belted when Vernon came down, but as he lay on his Uncle’s lap, rump up, he’d had a lingering sense of victory deep in his gut that drove away his hunger and his thirst. He’d found a better out from reality than by grinding away his nails and fingers to a bloody pulp, and that he found in wishes, in wants, and in himself and himself alone.

 

When he went to reception, when he was a touch taller than when he was younger, ( _because that’s what he measures time by, the past, and only the past, because he’s not sure that night nor anything but him exists_ ) but just as slight and near-blind, and they called out for a ‘Harry Potter’, he didn’t recognize who it was until the teacher went over the list, and he realized he was the only Harry in the class. He’d grinned so hard that a few kids shied away from him, because he now had something better than one name, he had _two,_ two that the Dursleys didn’t pick for him, and were his and his _alone_.

 

( _Count my bones from my toes up, and you will find that I lack two; Had I forsaken them before this, before my blood turned to ice and my words into flame,  I would have been far happier._ )

 

It was his lullaby, his own god, sung to him in his own voice, either cheerful or quiet and somber, or full of weepy hiccups or tight with rage. It was his own gift to himself, his own name, and sometimes, when the stars were no doubt out but he couldn’t hope to glimpse him, he rearranged the letters of his name, and giggled at the combinations. Potty Harrr. Horrtaprty. Thyrpo Rat. Amusing, amusing, right? And then he’d added random letters, letters he chose, didn’t choose any D’s or V’s, and made sentences out of his name, out of other people’s names, out of everyone’s names.

 

He found if he named his abilities, named what he wanted to do, then it was easier, and he spent hours thinking on why, _why why why why,_ up until he got himself to turn spiders into rats and rats into bacon by just thinking of a made-up word, thinking of his want, and wanting to have his wish be so _real_ that his head ached, but at the end of the day, he could deal with it better because his belly would be full.

 

He learned how to read a while ago, but only when he found the local library did he actually _read_ , read all he could and even what he couldn’t, because he could spend his time in the cupboard going over what he’d read, and mentally cataloge it, and also because he’d noticed that people thought him dim, because he was so very quiet, and because he didn’t quite know when to speak up. Or whether to speak up at all.

 

Being smart was good, he learned, as a librarian smiled cheerfully at him as he asked for a specific book he wanted to find.

 

He volunteered, called out, helped children and helped teachers, and helped Dudley to read different letters, with the stuffing when the festivals would come around, would listen to Uncle Vernon talk business, or try to, to his snot nosed son, and when Harry felt especially foolish, and really self deprecating, he’d even ask a question, which Vernon would answer, gleefully thinking it was his son, until he realized that Dudley’s eyes were still glazed over with confusion, and that Harry was grinning like a cat upon a canary.

 

In the first year of school, of honest to gos--god school, he’d gotten the highest grades in the class, in his year, above that year too, and he’d remembered how one time he was thrown in his cupboard, at the end of the semester, when it was getting hot and the air full of bugs, because the teacher had dared to imply that he was smarter that Dudders, and should be moved up a grade.

 

That day, that day, would stick with him, stick to him from then up until he was tall and his hands spread miracles and his tendons and sinews were the paeans of the unfortunate, as he heard someone rip his school books open, his library books,  smelled acrid smoke from under the minute crack of his door, as he lay huddled on his bed, thousands of little spiders and daddy long legs staring at him in bemusement, as he curled into his too-bony frame, and kept on looking at the door, wishing and wishing and wishing and not wishing.

 

The smouldering of his enjoyment, of a childhood he never quite would have gotten no matter what he hoped, burned that day, it crawled up his nostrils like a blight, and laid eggs in his ears, and it all built, and built, up until the point where all he heard day in and day out was the wail of starving babes, and the singing of their mother, forever in mourning for something she never knew and never would have known how to handle had she had it.

 

That day, he knew that no matter what, people won’t like you, won’t ever like you, no matter what you read, what you do, what you want,  and all that’s left is to either fuck their opinions, or become what they want you to be.

 

He can’t afford to do the former, his constant pains and bad eyesight and skinny frame are just the start of the proof,  so the only thing he’s faced with is the latter.

 

Teachers soon lamented how such a brilliant boy could turn so dumb within the span of a summer. Dudley was the kid with the second lowest scores, right ahead of the the little idiot boy with the glasses, and the far-away look. They held him back, even, up until Petunia and Vernon dragged him to Year 3 because Dudley was the lowest of the low again, and they couldn’t stand their little darling boy sniffling no longer.

 

If the boy with the round glasses was sometimes found with thick books, they’d laugh it off, and wonder just how little Harry knew they’d be around the corner, and pull out that thick  book on World War One just in time. Some teachers, some poor bastards, even made it their mission to help the black haired dunce, to teach him, to have people see the spark of intelligence in him.

 

They all failed, they all failed, and at the end of the day, the little boy with the bruises and the tiny brain would skip home, with his fellow idiot cousin, and do idiot things.

 

People thought that, at least, but they were very, very, _very_ wrong. Because this was perfect, he should have done this earlier, because everyone thought him a fool, a useless bugger, he was allowed to get away with almost anything. most always got away with whatever he'd done, because he was the slow boy who didn't know any better. He heard all the choice rumours, all that everyone never wanted to be here, because they thought if they gave just one small threat to him, that he´ll piss himself and never be able to tell.

 

One time, he even heard a bunch of girls talk about how they found a dead dog on the road, and made the slow girl of the class, Madeline, kiss it and hug it, and how it´s tongue fell into her stupid, gaping mouth, and how maggots crawled down her throat and made her pregnant. He was sure something about that tale was woven, and he figured out which part, when Madeleine was gone for a few months, and how fun Mr. Mackey was soon replaced by stern Mrs. Benstrom.

 

He doesn't know when he grew bitter, and cold, can´t place when or where he came to favour the presence of his self and no one else, but only knows that one year, he was wide-eyed and naive and willing to do anything to please, and in another, he didn't trust anything but animals, but his serpents, for they were dumb things, that didn´t know what is good or what is bad, only what is, and what they want. He wanted to direly adopt this philosophy, to not care about anything as hard as they did, but it was hard, he learned.

 

It was impossible, he learned, because people would always see whatever you did in shades of grey, no matter if you thought your actions to be colourless.

 

Maybe the day he gave up on humanity was when he came to the Dursley's one day, and found that they had stuffed his closet full of Dudley´s gifts, and that he had nowhere else to sleep but the back yard, where the mud was colder than any ice, and even ants forsook him in favour of hurrying to the house, to try and feed off the remains of the feast for Dudley's birthday.

 

And then, and then, the very next day, he'd fainted at school, once again, and this time, no one even seemed to care except those plastic looks of worry brought on by social expectations.

 

No one seemed surprised to see bruises marring his flesh, especially after he started pretending he never even knew what a metaphor is, how to spell ´difficult´, how to name common household objects without stuttering and play-gripping his hair in frustration. No one cared for idiots, was something he came to know well, and something he stopped caring about in time.

 

He remembered seeing the Berlin wall falling on T.V, remembered feeling the stirrings of joy and awe as people tore down the symbol of their oppressors, heard how people were calling it the begining of a free world,  and how Uncle Vernon huffed with displeasure, and like a soothsayer of old, foretold that all of those commies would come to England, and fill up all the good jobs and good houses, leaving nothing for hard working fellows like Dudley.

 

He’d glanced down at Harry, with his sharp nose and nut skin and untamable hair, and sneered, saying how the displacement of the proper people was starting already.

 

Harry found out he had birthdays when he was 5, but only found out  exactly _when_ whenhe turned 9.  He didn´t value age even after that, up until a letter came addressed to him, to his name, and no one else's, and he shoved it down into his pants and didn't take it out until he was in home sweet home once more, in his cramped closet,  full of recent boxes and bleach and rat poison.

 

(Huh,  maybe the Dursley's were hinting at something.)

 

He remembered his hand shaking, fingers twitching, breath coming out fast and vision blurring even more, how he carefully broke up the smelly adhesive, and saw green ink spell out his salvation.

 

He was magic, this he had known ever since he could crawl, he was special, this he knew from time immemorial, he knew he was better, from the day he saw his peers not pay any heed to the true danger in the room, to Harry and the bright eyed teacher, with spindly fingers and a too-wide smile, and a touch that lingered for far too long on the shoulders of vertible babes.

 

And I don´t care, he thought, as he scanned his list of school supplies. I don't care, and never really did, even if I liked to think about it. No, all he ever did was live, and, well, doesn't he now have a reason most true?

 

That day, when the Dursley's slept, he wished his door open, and stopped by to grab the things most precious to him, the arm of the teddy he was once allowed to have, his favourite book, which he had ruined with his scribbles and edits, which had Dudley gnaw and claw at it in jealousy, up until the point where he stopped thinking of it being made by someone else than himself.

 

Just before he left, he took a slice of bacon, and fried it on the stove, and while it’s crackle and bubbles would have woken up anyone, the Dursleys weren’t just anyone, they were fat, lazy slobs, who closed their doors at night, and never thought that anything unusual could ever happen to them. He was tempted, oh, _oh_ was he tempted to let the gas on, so that it’ll fill the whole room up, and that even the slightest spark would set the house ablaze and make those Dursley’s the next small small small thing on the news, buthe needed a place to come back to, if it all didn’t work, if he failed, if this was all a lie, and he really _was_ ordinary, lonesome Harry with no one out there to care for him or want him but _himself_ \--

 

He swallowed down a clump in his throat, chewing on scalding meat, before walking out the front door.


End file.
